


A Nicer Game

by fulcrumstardust, halflingmerry



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Cellmates to Lovers, Except it’s a Cell, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sharing Body Heat, Sir that’s my emotional support stranger, There Is Only One Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26797261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulcrumstardust/pseuds/fulcrumstardust, https://archiveofourown.org/users/halflingmerry/pseuds/halflingmerry
Summary: 《 Some people just got to you… for no apparent reason, no apparent effort, and far too little time…  》Locked between four walls, the unlikelihood of a mutual attraction, and recognition between two strangers.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 87
Kudos: 254





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's safe to say that we both contributed to heartbreaking, book-length, serious character-study stories in this fandom, so, hey... have something else! ;D Because we all need a little break and good smut sometimes! 
> 
> aka: THERE IS ONLY ONE CELL!!!

The hand pressed on her back pushed forward. Short of sight, Jyn tried to compensate by shifting her center of gravity. The ground under her soles had a different ring to it: metal, regular, divided by panels. A ship deck. _Shit_.

Another push and she tripped over an invisible obstacle standing between her and her ticket to fuck-me-station. She heard a few mocking laughs behind her, followed by a short foreign exchange between the bounty hunter and the buyer — whoever that might be.

She wondered how much she was worth these days.

They might have concluded their deal already, because a bigger hand grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to the right. Jyn groaned, wishing a slow and painful death to whoever was handling her like a bag of podons. Her mood didn’t improve when she found herself with her wrists locked to a solid wall.

While footsteps retreated, no one had the decency to remove her blindfold. Really fucking rude people. ( _That’s what you get for sleeping in a rat-hole._ )

A panel slid shut. Jyn felt the cold pressured air being pumped into the compartment brushing her face. Airtight environment. Not that much of a good omen if you’d ask her. Growing increasingly irritated with herself and her kriffing mistakes, she tilted her head and started to rub her face against her contorted shoulder, hoping to get rid of that stupid blindfold. After some battling, the rough fabric finally slipped from her face. Jyn exhaled, hair in front of her eyes, and blinked into semi-darkness.

Someone else was breathing, there. Her vision adjusted (too damn slowly) and saw another pair of eyes. Another Human was locked like she was to the opposite wall. He looked possibly rougher than she felt: black eye, split lip, more bruising on one side of his face. The state of his wrists suggested he’d struggled, though he now just hung. His clothes were a mess. Like her, he had a former-blindfold, hanging around his neck, stained with sweat and some blood. He hadn’t been taken easily, and/or gone through 'processing'. His eyes were unnervingly steady, watching her.

Jyn sighed. As if today could get any worse.

Tearing her gaze away from the silent man, she slid her legs to the side, trying to roll over. The limited freedom made it awkward and painful. Not a good time to dislocate a shoulder. She grimaced when her elbow sharply pressed against her bruised ribs. She didn’t like having an audience while she battled like a fish out of the sea, but she liked even less being in chains.

After a ridiculous acrobatic, Jyn managed to sit down facing backward. She lifted her left leg, resting her heel against the wall, knee bent. _Aren’t you glad now for that nice bedroom trick?_ (This was way less pleasant than fucking.) All that fussing around started to make her sweat. Jyn frowned under concentration and battled to get a hold of her ankle. The harsh edge of her cuffs cut into her skin painfully. She rolled the hem of her pants and grabbed a thin lockpick lodged into her boot. Thank the Force that dumb fuck didn’t know how to search escaped convicts.

The lack of bright light made it harder to operate. Jyn toyed around for long, frustrating minutes, thinking she had lost her hand. But the handcuffs finally unlocked. She huffed a little sound of satisfaction and rubbed her hurting wrists, though it didn’t help much.

Now onto the next thing: Jyn turned around, standing up on tired legs, and looked at her… unfortunate companion. He’d been watching her silently this whole time. She had a choice. Her survival instincts had an answer. But the miserable state he was in frayed something in her. A repressed memory.

She closed the distance, cautious of his presence, and surveyed him further. As of right now, he looked in no condition to be a threat, but she knew better than to underestimate strangers. Crouching down next to him, Jyn locked eyes with him.

“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, picking at the set of cuffs.

His arm fell limply to his side. When the other fell free, he didn’t try to touch her. He felt his way down the wall to sit on the floor. As he rubbed his wrists, he kept eying her like she was a guard instead of fellow inmate. Then he startled her with an incongruously courteous: “Thank you.”

Jyn nodded and retreated as far as possible. The compartment was barely two meters wide, the size of a cell, and very much one. She walked to the door, ran her fingers along the edges, cataloged the environment. No emergency access from this side. Security-grade construction. Prison-ship. “Fuck me,” Jyn muttered.

Her cellmate muttered something that might, darkly, have been: “Careful who you say that around, here.”

“You’re the only one around,” she said, unimpressed.

Patience wasn’t one of Jyn’s strong suits. The uncertainty of her fate made her restless. She wanted out, but couldn’t do anything about it. Only sit tight and play 10 questions with her cellmate until they finally docked somewhere, preferably planet-side, because escaping from deep space posed _way_ too many challenges. For a starter: the lack of oxygen. Jyn slammed a defeated boot against the door and pushed her hair back. At last, she sat back on the floor, lamenting the loss of her scarf in the debacle.

“Where do you think we’re going?” she asked.

The man still watched her, but he’d let his head lean back. “Sticking us together might mean a common buyer. You cross any of these, recently? —Black Sun, Pykes, Shadow Collective, Crimson Dawn, Starlag, Third State, Partisans, Hutts, Kanjiklub, Rebellion, Empire…?”

(He’d either pissed off both sides of every conflict—which was _her_ trademark!—or he was obscuring by just listing everyone.)

Jyn let out a dry laugh. “What do I win with my bingo card? Looks like we’re two bad seeds, uh?”

He returned her look. “Or one of us is a plant to inform on the other.”

That got her to rethink her previous act of kindness. “So that would be you.” She didn’t expect an answer but stared at him to observe his reaction, nonetheless. He sounded smarter than the average mobster. She wondered how he had ended up in this unpleasant situation.

In any case, the closest civilization was approximately twenty hours away (re: what made that dusty asteroid station so attractive in the first place). Which meant: a lot of time to entertain her curiosity.

“Not necessarily,” he said; resigned. “But neither of us is in a position to prove it. On the other hand, that possibility could be a deterrent to our cooperating, somehow. —I hate logic puzzles.”

Jyn wanted to laugh. She kept her face humorless and rubbed her scarred palms against her knees. “Wherever we’re going, I’m bailing out as soon as this door opens. So let me say this: I may look small but I’ll break your neck if you stand in my way.”

“I’m no match for you right now,” he agreed. “But I don’t like your plan. The people on the other side of that door won’t be taken by surprise.”

“I’m not going back to prison,” Jyn said too harshly. “I’m _not._ ”

“If my list is accurate, the odds are in your favor. Only the Hutts, Black Sun, and Empire practice long-term incarceration.”

“You’re shit at comforting people.”

“Sorry. Want some Deychin tea? that we don’t have ’cause, can’t really disguise the fact that, we’re in a cell?”

Jyn rolled her eyes, torn between amusement and a slight aggravation. She crossed her arms over her knees, feeling the low vibration of ion engines where her back was pressed against the cold wall. “What’s up with you anyway? Are you gonna die on me?”

“Not planning on it. Probably won’t even puke on you. But can’t promise.”

“Please don’t. I didn’t bring a change of clothes.” Her voice softened along the edges. She had… concerns, but she couldn't do anything about it. “What happened to you?”

His eyes flickered to hers again. Somewhere inside the glaze, the dullness of experience, looking at her brought the tiniest, unexpected spark… He shook himself. “It’s an embarrassing story. If you’re a plant, you know it already. If I’m a plant, it’d be a play for sympathy. All in all, not worth telling.”

Jyn had a weird feeling about that guy. She didn’t know how to read him, something she was generally quite good at. She didn’t give a shit about his mind games. The man seemed highly paranoid, even given the present circumstances. He had something to hide, or something to lose. Either way, she wasn’t particularly interested in finding out. But her stubbornness wanted her to crack the encryption key… because no one should have been this difficult to read. Not to her.

She stretched both legs in front of her, trying to release some muscular tension. The tip of her boots was still stained with dark red spots. “It’s fine,” she shrugged. “You’ve got time to change your mind.”

He started to answer. Instead, he coughed until he spat something onto the floor. ( _—away_ from her. That was another courtesy. Spitting toward her would have been a statement.) He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “What happened to _you,_ then?”

“A couple of unhappy customers ratted on me,” Jyn said, waving a hand in front of her. “It’s funny, you know, no matter how many times you change your name, it’s always coming back to fuck you over. I should dye my hair or some shit next time. Maybe change my _face._ ”

She laughed at her own suggestion, quite unamused. And why was she blabbing all that to a random stranger, anyway?

“I was getting sick of that shitty station,” she bitterly said, “so I guess it all worked out for me.”

Follow-up questions flitted across the readable half of his face. He didn’t ask them. What he said next was astonishing only in how he said it: _not_ like a proposition. “Be a shame to change for those assholes. It’s a good face.”

For a short uncomfortable moment, Jyn didn’t know how to respond to that. What the fuck was this guy’s deal? Thankfully enough, her natural snark came back just as quickly, shutting down every parasitic thought in her mind. “You should see it when I’m clean. It’s worth a few drinks.”

A wince of his unpuffed-up eye; the slightest shift of his shoulders. _(He doesn’t like equating me/appearance with barter…?)_ His reply was sardonic, to match; only a shard inside it. “Well. Mine could do with that Deychin tea.”

“I’ll take you on a date when we’re out of this mess. Have your fucking tea.”

She didn’t know why she said it, but there it was, too late for a seal of approval.

He huffed out a laugh. _Deal:_ flirting’s a nicer game than others. “I’m in. Where’d we go?”

A smirk peaked at the corners of her mouth. Jyn looked around for inspiration. “Depends. What’s the mood we’re aiming for? Are you a straight to the point guy or do I have to work you hard to get in your pants?”

“Depends what we consider ‘the point’.”

“I just told you,” Jyn cut. “A night of mindblowing sex and no one getting arrested.”

That spark again. She’d found one readable channel in him. “In that case… anywhere with a locked door.”

She genuinely laughed. “Shit. We have a locked door right there.”

He lopsidedly smiled _._ “Shame about the ‘arrested’ part.”

Trying not to stare too much (and not to think about that smile), Jyn nodded. “Yeah, I guess I should lower my standards. I can’t remember what a dick feels like.” No dramatic reaction from him; not so easily thrown. Okay. “I know a nice place on Takodana. Killer sunset view.”

“Can’t argue about standards. I wouldn’t be good for much right now. You’d have to… do everything.”

Jyn raised an eyebrow to convey her reaction. “I could do that. Didn’t you see my impressive flexibility? But I was talking about the criminal profile, not… you.” She gave it a pause for dramatic effect, finding that improbable conversation perfectly suited to divert her mind from the present situation. “I’m pretty sure you’re my type when you’re not spitting blood.”

 _“That’s_ a good standard to uphold.” He was still smiling. It didn’t do much for the pummeled side of his face. The way it crinkled his good eye, though, was… extremely… nice.

Okay. This could be a nice way to ‘cooperate’, after all. Making each other’s stay less awful. That wasn’t how caged acquaintances usually went. Possible downsides: slippery slope into actual sympathy, risk more sharing than intended, and/or make it harder to part ways, or even turn on each other, afterward.

But, whatever, it hadn’t even been an hour yet.

“Do you have a name?” Jyn asked. “Or is this too much commitment into our relationship—”

“The name on my intake is ‘Aasch’. Yours?”

“I don’t like it,” Jyn scrunched her nose. “ _Aasch_. Can’t you pick another one? It’s not easy to moan.”

He spluttered a laugh. “ _That’s_ a deciding factor… Is ‘Will’ better?”

“Better,” she agreed, even if not her favorite. There was that one guy, on Garel, named Will that still owed her— _Anyway_. “You can try Kestrel for me.”

“That makes me sadder to meet you in a cage.”

“Ah, you’re a deep soul like that, okay.” Jyn surprised herself by not hating the idea when she said: “I’ll give you my real name when we make it to Takodana.”

The shard uncovered again in his eye—seeming truly sad. “Deal. Is that a clue?”

Clue? …to allegiance, maybe. Takodana was not-so-secretly a smugglers’ haven. Could speak to her identity, or, if she was a plant, trying to trick him into— Karking fuck, he had _her_ thinking in these stupid spirals, now. “I’m a code-forger for hire. There’s no mystery behind it.” Strictly speaking, it _was_ true. “I pissed off the wrong people this time, I guess.”

He nodded slightly enough not to wince. “They have me down for ‘political prisoner’. Could suck for my group.” —Still a cagey answer: that’d suck for _any_ type of group. It might also count toward explanation or apology, for his insistence on dancing like this. “I couldn’t get anything useful about our hosts. Probable buyers… I don’t think the Rebellion, Shift, or Partisans pay bounties. Empire… depends who’s working that day, who they hate more: the prisoners or the hunters. You get anything?”

—Ah, _pooling info_ phase. Progress, maybe.

“I don’t think the Empire gives a fuck about us, no offense. I mean, not enough to _pay_ for my ass. Unless you’re very important… or maybe— hmm, okay. I left some unfinished business on Five Points. Rings a bell?” Jyn could see Solange coming after her. The commander had the monetary means, too, thanks to Jyn. _That fucking bitch._ “Either that or pirates. Sélima Kim likes to sell prisoners.”

“I’ve been there,” he said. “It’s been a while. I was picked off Jelucan.” He sighed. “Worth a shot.”

Jyn’s mind shifted around. The probabilities of the Empire being involved in her capture had seemed low enough, so far away into Wild Space. But now… the sudden prospect left her cold and unresponsive. This wouldn’t be just another trip into a local prison, then. Her chances of survival had plummeted to their death (bad pun free of charge.)

“That sucks,” Jyn said with a flat tone of voice. “You might well be the last person enjoying my company.” She looked away, her gaze lost into a black corner, and fell silent.

⁂

In any situation, first priority was finding what control could be had. Currently, only over themselves; so, level one: avoid psychological capture. Few sentients could do that naturally. He’d needed training. The fact that _she_ could, and had, could speak to any number of possibilities for her past. But it made her… Well, among other things, less likely to be a plant. One of those would definitely play ‘captured’.

Cassian wasn’t glad to be here, nor glad she was, but there was a gladness, somewhere, that at least they were with each other. She was improbably, inadvisably enjoyable, and seemingly safe, company. If they’d met somewhere else, would they have casually, willingly spoken…?

What the hell. Keeping themselves entertained had benefits. Anyone listening wouldn’t get anything substantial, and they themselves would be in better psychological shape whenever they got out. So… go ahead: pretend they were at Moeseffa’s on Five Points and been accidentally given each other’s drinks. And that he was the kind of person who _could_ (and would) play like this. “ ‘Kestrel’. How’d you come by that?”

“It was the name of a ship I worked on for a while. The _Kestrel Dawn_ ,” she said. “Has a nice ring to the ear… like a holo star.” She shrugged the memory away as if it belonged to somebody else.

His mind hadn’t gone to _holo star._ He had the image of an actual falcon flying at sunrise. That would _definitely_ get more teasing than _‘deep soul’_ so he kept it to himself. “ ‘Aasch’ is for an animal, too,” he said. —Real information, but useless. Don’t resist the urge toward truth; just find harmless truths. “I have friends on Sullust. It’s volcanic. Always soot dust in the air. They have creatures called ‘ash-angels’ and ‘ash-rabbits’. Probably ash-others.”

A new spark of interest finally pierced through her eyes. She turned her body to face him properly. “Oh, yeah? I’ve never been there. What does it look like? The ash-rabbit?”

“Furry; yea big; long ears, short tail, perpetual motor in its nose…”

“Can you pet it?” she smirked. And for a moment, she looked younger than her general demeanor suggested. He stared, not just with the familiar gravity sink of recognizing someone aged way too fast; caught flat-footed by the completely wild, unprecedented mental image of her _with him, **then** , _as friends…

“They keep creatures like them as pets on some planets,” he said, dragging himself back to the cold, achy, lousy present. “The wild ones are deceptively scrappy.” Small, cute, but could do a number on you. Like Kestrel. If she wasn’t bluffing. ...She wasn’t.

“I kinda want to see one, now. But I shouldn’t be allowed to have a pet, I’m bad enough at keeping myself alive.” She gestured an arm in the air to encompass the obvious.

He gestured in answering self-indication. Not in a position to judge.

Then he had a stupid idea, and scanned. “…Here.” He shifted away from the wall (suppressing a wince) to the best portion of floor. Into the coat of dirt and dust, he used his finger to sketch a passable rabbit.

Kestrel crawled next to him with a curious face. “Eh, that’s cute,” she said. And she seemed genuinely satisfied by the illusion of the idea in place of an animal she’d probably never see. Not in this timeline. She must have had inherently low expectations of life, making due with the grimmest circumstances. She also must be satisfied that he wasn’t faking his injuries, or was satisfied that she could take him either way. (Kestrel _would_ beat wounded Rabbit.)

He didn’t need to press it. He returned to the wall, as much for the coolness against his still-smarting back as for the brace. She remained where she was, sitting cross-legs next to his drawing. Something obviously buzzed inside her brain.

She finally leveled her eyes with him and the softness had vanished from her face. “I really don’t feel like dying,” she dryly said. “Are you too fucked up to put up a fight?”

“Not if fighting’s the right call,” he said. “You really think it will be?”

“All I know is that once we’re docked, they’ll get us separate ways and I’ll get a public hanging or—if I’m lucky—a spot in a prison-colony. I don’t see myself having another shot.” She paused and dragged her fingers in the rusty dust, tracing abstract forms around his previous attempt. “If you think you’ll get home with a ransom, fine. You should play it safe. If not, at least we can get fucked trying.”

He leaned his head back on the wall, felt every inch of it, and momentarily slipped himself into it. A bit late to play invisible observer, but he needed to attempt to isolate all circuits for a minute. Finding her surprisingly brave, clever, and charming was no basis for suddenly trying to incorporate her into his own considerations.

…Though wasn’t it great when the bigger mission _didn’t_ require foregoing, sacrificing, the just-as-righteous smaller acts? Like helping an individual whose every behavioral and informational marker placed her on their side of Galactic power dynamics?

He was certain enough she wasn’t a plant. That didn’t mean they hadn’t been placed together for someone else’s purpose. Not safe to spill things.

And his feelings, his instincts, weren’t necessarily _compromised_ by feeling heightened… not changed, just… with less of a lid on _…_

Okay. “We just met. You have no reason to trust me. But I have a proposal.”

“Fire away,” she said, rubbing her palms clean on her trousers. “I’m free all day.”

“When that door opens and we see what’s happening. If you have to fight, I’ll fight with you. If I say not to, don’t. Because if I don’t have to, neither will you. I’ll make sure. We’ll stick together either way.”

“Hmm,” she scrunched her nose, visibly pulling her torso backward. Automatic reaction. “You really _are_ an important fucker, ah. I guess… I could consider it. Though I don’t see how you could get me out of this. If it’s the Imps, there’s a commander waiting first in line to end me.”

“If it’s the Imps, it’s our common enemy.” (That still allowed him to be with… literally anyone else.) “It’s if we’re being delivered to separate buyers that this won’t work.” (Would she continue to let him _not_ define ‘this’?)

“It wouldn’t make sense to keep us together, right?” The question seemed to be purely rhetorical. “Hey, you know what? I could spend the next twenty hours or so trying to guess who the fuck you are. How annoying would that be?” A sarcastic smile barely peaked on her dry lips.

Another possible play for information, that giving her something might divert. More likely, her mocking him again.

“Or we could take turns and try to sleep,” she said.

“I can do that,” he said. …Then, strangely, didn’t just take the exit she offered: “Though you _do_ know who the fuck I am.”

“Yeah, probably,” she admitted—without much relief. “I prefer to think of you as my unlucky date while I can.”

He let the _‘probably’_ slide, for now. “I meant, almost no one else knows my childhood nickname was ‘Ash-Rabbit’.”

A beat went by; her posture changed. “Is this your usual move to make them swoon?”

“No.” He’d be emoting more while feeling less.

“Stardust,” she said. “That was mine.”

…Some people just _got_ to you. For no apparent reason, no apparent effort, and far too little time. He’d always known that. Even if this might be one of the only times it was _happening_.

“You can go first,” he murmured at last. “Sleeping.”

She wanted to argue. It was evident enough. She didn’t, only nodded and walked back against one of the walls. She curled up on herself, facing the door, back secured.

Silence took possession of the cell again. The sound of her breathing barely reached his ears, overpowered by the ambient noises of the spaceship. A low rumble below them. Distant footsteps echoed somewhere down a galley. Every little sign of the _other side_ was muffled by the thick panels lining their shared space. If they started to fight each other to death, no one would even notice. Disturbingly reckless to transport live bounties (although, to be fair, they were _not_ supposed to be shackle free).

Cassian slipped back into observer mode, mentally merging with the wall, absorbing every sound and vibration he could reach, distancing himself from his abused body and forcibly-opened heart. Only now and then did his senses catch on the small figure in the joint of floor and wall. Wondering at how avoiding ‘real’ information had somehow resulted in sharing what might be _realer_ all around. — _dawn kestrel—Stardust._

⁂

Jyn didn’t sleep, not really. A part of her brain stayed online, waiting for a blow, for a threat, for something to fight. Nothing moved around her. Her thoughts stayed superficial and noiseless. She did catch some rest, if only physical, but a growing discomfort pulled her out from her daze after a while.

She opened her eyes, now perfectly acclimated to the lack of luminosity. She outlined the perimeter as a confirmation that the situation hadn’t changed, and found back the silhouette of her cellmate—which hadn’t moved. Jyn shivered, cold to the bones, and noticed her breath turning into a small cloud each time she exhaled. _Great_.

She huffed a low grunt, pushing herself upward. A tingly feeling ran from her fingers to her elbows. She pressed her hands between her thighs, trying to warm them.

“Hey,” Jyn said, her whole body shaking uncontrollably, “growl if you’re not dead.”

His good eye opened. “ ‘Grrr’?”

“Good,” she laughed (and ignored the part of her that felt _relieved_ to hear his voice.) “Someone should tell those dwizzers that Humans don’t do too well subzero. What a cheap ride. I’m gonna start losing fingers.”

He was looking blue around the lips, too. Only after she said it, though, did he seem to realize it, and shivered. “I’m starting to think,” he muttered, “that I’ve been giving them too much credit. If these are plays, they make no sense. Tracks better if their operation is just a mess.”

Jyn vigorously nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I punch first and ask questions later.”

His gaze at her looked… possibly… _fond._ She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about crawling next to him and finding out if he was warmer than the freezing floor.

So, of course, _he_ said it. “Staying against the walls isn’t good. They’re cold as the air. We could sit back-to-back.”

Fuck him. She couldn’t counter with anything that made sense, and any other argument would tip him right off. This was way beyond Jyn’s pool of trust. Closeness was worse than a strategic alliance. _You cluster together, you die,_ Saw whispered into her ear. But she was so terribly cold and there was no escaping it. Not alone. It made sense to optimize their survival. Plus he couldn’t do anything to her. A non-lethal ash-rabbit. Maybe if she thought of it that way…

“Okay,” she said like an emotionless droid.

She didn’t have very far to go to reach him. Jyn dragged herself closer, tension at the base of her spine ready to snap taut. To calm her core (pathological) cautiousness, she wondered how he perceived her on that same scale of danger.

He was unreadable again—a state he kept shifting in and out of, maybe regaining, maybe relapsing. But he pushed himself gingerly from the wall and… turned his back. Despite it being his suggestion, him giving her that, first, did help.

Jyn mirrored him and pressed her back against him. She almost expected to feel a sudden blade lodged in her flank. Years of abuse did that to a brain. But nothing came—nothing but the press and release of his breathing, low and steady. She tried to follow it, hands clasped in front of her.

He _was_ warmer than the wall. The small portion of her body in contact with his received a beneficial amount of human heat, proof that they weren’t as stupid as they currently looked.

So close to him, the back of her head awkwardly brushed against his shoulders. She thought about leaning back but stopped herself.

“I’d pay good money for a blanket,” Jyn said, trying to distract her brain with _anything_.

His voice made a gentle vibration through their shoulder blades. “Among other things.”

“Right.” Her body seemed desperate to trap some warmth, causing her to shiver from head to toe. “I shouldn’t complain,” Jyn said, “I’ve got more layers than you.”

“Things can always be worse,” he murmured; “doesn’t invalidate what’s happening.”

That gave her a pause. It was the first time someone had even expressed that concept to her, so unlike… everything she’d ever known. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she liked the honesty in his voice. She liked the way his words passed through her each time he spoke. She’d happily keep him going, but she had nothing else to say.

_Imagine if you really met him on Takodana. I bet he wouldn’t have blinked twice in your direction._

⁂

Cassian had hoped the rest would help clear his head. He’d gone longer without sleep while being more active. He tended to underestimate how much energy being injured took. Autonomically, the body was working to repair itself. Experientially, pain had its cost. Add in dehydration then drop the temperature, triggering any warm-blooded being’s sleep mode. Letting his adrenaline drop backfired. He felt more, utterly, abjectly, tired.

Then, the decisive blow: the warmth and support of another body. And not any body: that of a person he felt… no matter how nonsensically… drawn to. One that, against all sense and precedent and reason, he wanted to feel (…already felt?) comfortable with. Like they actually knew each other.

“Will you do me a favor?” he mumbled.

“Ask and you’ll know,” she said.

“I think letting my core temp go lower is a bad idea. If I drift off, can you wake me?”

There was a… worrisome… delay to her response. “What if… I hold you and I let you sleep instead?”

“You don’t have to do that.” Hair-trigger, intense response.

In part _because_ it sounded… exquisite.

She shrugged. “As long as I stay glued to you, it doesn’t matter how.”

His brow smarted from frowning. He consciously relaxed it and tried to unhitch his mind again. _We claim control over ourselves. She avoided psychological capture._ It wasn’t a great situation for freedom of consent… but kinda not with each _other._ (Again: emotions not compromised, only possibly his ability to _deny_ them.) And… true, it was more mutually beneficial than not. He just had to shake his own echoes.

“That sounds great,” he managed. “Just… y’know. Push me if you change your mind. …On _this_ arm, if possible.”

She muffled a small laugh and said: “I’m sure there’s a good joke to be told here, but my last brain cells have frozen.” Then, she moved around and laid down next to him, a grimace on her face when her back touched the ground. She opened one arm as an invitation.

He could only look at her for a moment. He knew his expression was a telling kind of blank. …But, even if she wouldn’t be choosing this in another circumstance… His paranoia finally short-circuited. There had to come a point where you did something. (Trusted someone.) It was only that this was something he actually _wanted_ that had prolonged this so long. They both needed this. Why not—as they’d been doing all along—see if they could make the best of it…?

So he eased himself onto his good side, not putting his weight on his bruises; fit himself slowly to her side, and put his head on her bicep. His ceiling-side arm, he thought to keep to himself… except this was about sharing heat… so, slowly, attention on her reactions, he put it across her ribs—conscientious both of not seizing too much intimacy _and,_ in this one, not imposing restraint.

“Safe word ‘rabbit’?” he offered. He’d started to go with _Stardust,_ then decided it was too flippant a use of that confidence.

“Sure,” she said, closing her arms around him and holding onto every bit of warmth she could get. “Force, I fucking hate space.”

The warmth of her hold was… molten. He felt himself melting into her. It was so pleasant, he had to keep reminding himself _not_ to resist. “It’s not that bad… just hurtling in a box that kills you if it breaks…”

“You’re so shit at comforting people,” she mocked.

“But I’m consistent, right?”

“True. Can you imagine the look on their faces if they saw their prisoners cuddling instead of… _prisonering_. I bet that’s a first.”

 _Unless this was the plan to soften us up._ Oh, enough. Even he had to give it a rest after a while. You could second-guess _anything, everything_ to the Outer Rim and back, but when it wasn’t useful, it was the utter opposite. Plus, why do the torturing of yourself _for_ them? “If the heat’s out everywhere, they’re probably doing the same.”

That got her to laugh more openly. “Now, I’d pay to see that!”

 _Her laugh._ He relaxed all the way. _Stop thinking about compromise. Just allow it._ “This is good. Thank you. I’ll probably be out in a minute. Really: push me off whenever you need. Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’ll get you off when I’m ready to go for a jog.”

He even liked her sarcasm. Ridiculous. “G’night, Kestrel.”

She didn’t reply, but she curled a bit more around him and let out a deep, deep sigh.

⁂

Despite what he’d said, Jyn was surprised to have him actually _sleeping_. It warranted an unhealthy amount of trust in a complete stranger. Not a situation you’d want to find yourself into with so little control. She didn’t peg him as the unguarded type, so he must have been beyond exhaustion to slip into such carelessness—or, more surprising even, he _trusted_ her.

Difficult to say about someone you’d met a few hours ago. In a cell. _But here we are._

Jyn tugged him a little closer, his head on her collarbone and her torso slightly turned toward him. She enjoyed the soothing heat of his body against her. She enjoyed his arm around her way more than she should have. It’d been ages since anyone had held her, or even touched her without constituting a threat. A part of her almost felt like crying from the relief of that touch alone but she locked it away ( _so far away_ ).

Eyes closed, Jyn tried to project her mind across realities to ease the unwelcomed pain inside her chest. She imagined herself lying in bed, somewhere she could hear the breaking waves on the shore, carried by a salty breeze. A sunset sky and distant seagulls. His body tangled with her between soft white sheets. His naked skin, warm and wet after sex. The sound of his voice in her ear, the taste of his lips on her. Her arms around him, mapping the lines of his body.

With her mind away, her fingers absently brushed his neck, sliding into the short hair of his nape. She liked the smell of his skin, even here, even now. If this was her last encounter, at least he made it a nice one. Even if he turned out to be—

 _Things can always be worse_ , he’d said. Jyn figured she couldn’t be too picky about who she got to spend her hypothetical last hours with.

She wouldn’t wish for someone different anyway, because, in her gruesome and ruthless world, trust was a gift even rarer than love.

As time quietly stretched around them, her legs stopped trembling and her skin stopped burning from the cold. Either she had slipped into hypothermia or the heating was back online. She exhaled a deeper breath and noticed the absence of fog in the air. It _might_ have been a malfunction after all, and not a deliberate plan to kill them. But without the necessity of survival, she had no reason to stay close to him.

Her brain violently protested the idea. It was an animalistic reaction, she knew, something rooted deep inside of her. The notion that something you touched was meant to be kept… someone that you hold wasn’t meant to go.

( _How did it work out for you so far, Erso?_ )

Jyn closed her eyes again and listened to his breathing, shutting down the hurtful thoughts. If he stayed asleep a bit longer, no one had to think about whether or not she _liked_ to be this close to him.

In response to the heat, or some subtle reaction in her, his arm across her tightened… not triggering defensive reflex. Like he could pull her that much closer, too. Jyn experienced a strange feeling in her chest, another kind of warmth. Something… soft.

She hadn’t noticed how her fingers kept stroking his nape, but when she finally did, she didn’t stop. It didn’t seem to bother him. Very slowly, Jyn draped her other arm over his shoulders and pressed her cheek on top of his head. She’d blame anything when he would wake up to wonder what the fuck she was doing.

(She didn’t really know. But she decided she was doing it, anyway.)

Jyn could almost chase back the last memories of that bed near the ocean… and it might have been a lie, but it was the most peaceful feeling she’d known.

Reality, always, had to cut in. A brutal change of gravity momentarily caught her off-guard. Her head slammed back to the ground, prying a grunt of pain from her lips. (Hard to dream of the sea in a box ready to kill you.) The deck shifted beneath her again and her stomach fell back into place. That might have been a change of hyperline—but what a fucking _bad_ one.

‘Will’, ‘Rabbit’, whoever, was suddenly braced on his arm over/beside her. He looked surprised, but not so disoriented as someone who’d just roughly woken. Either he had the best turnaround reflexes she’d ever seen, or he’d been… choosing, the embrace, for a while, too. “You okay?”

Jyn starred. “Uh… yeah—” And her heartbeat accelerated. _Shit_. “You?”

He might’ve smiled, or maybe he winced, as he pushed himself into a seated position. (Ugh, right, ‘okay’ compared to what…?) “Better,” he said. “Not frozen and can see straight. I hadn’t slept properly since—I got here.” (And, it sounded like, longer.) “Thank you.”

Jyn nodded, untrusty of the sound of her voice. She put a great deal of effort into making sure her hands stayed by her sides… opposed to reaching out to pull him back down like she wanted to. The heat might have been back, but the loss of his touch got under her skin more than any blizzard ever could. Force, she just _needed_ to—

Jyn cleared her throat. “Anytime.” … _Anytime while I’m alive, please._

The way he looked at her… If only she had known how to read it. All she had were guesses, and her objectivity couldn’t be trusted because Jyn read way too much into that look.

After a moment, he announced awkwardly, “I’m going to lie back down. Conserve energy. I can move out of your way, if…”

Jyn touched his arm. In her defense, she didn’t have time to stop the impulse. But even if she had, she might not have stopped herself. _Oh, fuck it._ She tugged at him gently, in what she hoped was an explicit enough display of intention.

Without hesitation, he sank down with _his_ [good] arm open, offered, to her. She didn’t need more. Jyn rolled over and slid into his embrace, carefully placing a hand over his hard chest.

She hadn’t felt this content in a long, long time.

“So…” she whispered, trying to remember that she’d done braver things than this, “do you have anyone?”

His arm curved to circle her. It made a disproportionately comforting presence, sense of support, at her back. His more-bruised arm again came to rest on her, declaring the opposite of intent to restrain her with its light touch. (Plus that it probably wouldn’t function adequately if he tried.) He didn’t play games with the question. He knew what she meant. “No. Not for a while.” _Said like ‘ever’._ “You?”

She couldn’t deny the stupid excitement she felt at the words. Maybe more so, even, that he returned the question.

“No,” she said. And had the urge to add, in an attempt to calm her own mind: “Who wants to date a criminal?”

“There are all kinds of criminals.” His fingers started tracing nonsense on her arm.

She didn’t remember if she hummed a response or not. She looked at him in silence, feeling waves of pleasure traveling up and down her arm, where he touched her.

She wondered if she’d lost her mind… or if nothing really truly mattered in this galaxy. She wondered about the reckless trajectory of her life, and all the nothingness populating it. Realizing that she had no one to run back to, no one waiting for her… Not even a friend worried about her. No one would remember Jyn Erso. Maybe it had already happened.

The idea cut deep; the kind of wounds disguised under the pretense of independence. She wanted to make her existence matter, even for just a second more.

“Would you hate it if I kissed you?”

His hand stopped its tracing—but didn’t recoil. The opposite. It curled gently around her arm… almost… protectively. Or like he wanted… to… keep her. “I’m kinda worried I’d like it too much.”

Her eyes widened in the dark. She had no baseline for romance, but it scored higher than anything she’d heard so far. Jyn couldn’t feel any sort of cold anymore. “Is that a yes or a no?” But something else hit her mind and she bit her lip. “You know this is a real question, right? I would never— I’ll take a no.”

“That was a real answer,” he said. “…And… yes.”

She suddenly lacked the air to breathe out a sigh of relief. _Look what you got yourself into._ But—for once—it wasn’t a catastrophic predicament. Quite the opposite. If she could keep her mind offline for just a moment… and take that memory with her no matter what awaited at the end of the line. She’d like to have something nice.

Jyn propped herself on one elbow, looking down at him. He really _was_ a mess… she’d forgotten that his face wouldn’t always look half purple. But he was looking back at her… his fingers coming up to oh so barely trace her cheek… She angled her head down, slowly enough that she had time to memorize his breath on her skin. She aimed for the good side of his face, worried to hurt him. She pressed her lips at the corner of his mouth. And maybe it wasn’t a real kiss, but she could live with that. (Or die with it, either way.)

Jyn smiled at the harsh cynicism of her thoughts. “Thanks,” she whispered against his lips.

He breathed with her for a moment before repeating, “ ‘Thanks’?”

“For the kiss.”

“It wasn’t a favor,” he whispered. Before his fingertips somehow urged her back down and he touched his mouth fully to hers.

She kissed him back in the same breath, completely lost in the moment.

She discovered the shape of his lips, the scruff of his beard against her skin, the way his fingers curled behind her neck. Tentatively at first, they found the right way to synchronize. She tasted blood on his lips and wondered if it was his or hers. Her hand was on his neck before she noticed, framing his face. His palm was mirroring, on her cheek, and they _had_ to be aggravating his bruises but clearly he didn’t care.

The way he kissed her wasn’t possessive or hungry or congruent in any way to their situation. It was… soft… exploratory… _savoring._ Like they were learning to delight each other somewhere with drinks and view; like they had met entirely of their own volition, there were no injuries to worry about, and they had all the time in the Galaxy.

Jyn truly wished they had.

She traced his jawline with light fingertips, the shell of his ear, pushing her hand in his hair. She still pressed her lips against his, and left a longer kiss on his mouth before she had to part to breathe. She opened her eyes to look at him, a silent question burning in her gaze. And if the lights had been on, he would have been able to see how flushed she was. And how intoxicated she felt.

It made no sense for her to feel that way, not here, not now. But he was, indeed, her type. He had that sort of familiar face, one she wanted to trust. He had charisma, a singular presence, a raw charm he couldn’t quite tame—even if he tried to. (For Force’s sake, he had drawn her a cute pet in the dust.) Jyn knew, had they met somewhere else, that she would have tried to seduce him… Maybe even succeeded, judging by the longing kiss they’d just shared.

“My life is a collection of bad timing and wrong places,” Jyn whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. How did one syllable contain so much _connection_? He hesitated. Jyn would put money on him catching himself thinking what he knew was impossible. (…Or at least… premature?) “It doesn’t work to try to plan without information. I… don’t know. Each step as it comes. If we can help each other… I like that option best.” Even though they barely knew each other, that _didn’t_ seem like a moon-headed statement. Cooperation was rarely possible, but always optimal when it was. At the same time, the way he said it to _her…_ it _wasn’t_ just anyone.

“I like that, too.”

Far from the only thing she liked… There was nothing _strategic_ to think about right now. Not of immediate importance, anyway. Nothing to distract her from the more pressing thoughts swirling in her mind. Maybe, just this once—

Jyn came down to his lips in a very deliberate manner, giving him all the time to put a halt to her action.

He didn’t. His hand returned to her face, gentle, framing, not holding her, but like she could lean in and rest on it if she chose to. His thumb brushed the rise of her cheek. His fingers only flexed when they hit a painful spot on his mouth, but he just tilted his head and the kiss continued—intensified. His other arm had released her when she rose over him; it found its way back to her again, also gently, also seeming to anticipate any sign of disagreement, but hovered at her waist, the flat of his palm finding and smoothing the curve of her spine.

Jyn wanted to melt under his touch. She refrained from leaning more heavily on him, trying to keep her weight on her elbow. It proved to be harder than it should have, seeing how his kiss threatened to terminate any coherent thoughts she had left.

In a flash of external acknowledgement, Jyn wondered if being kissed _good_ had always meant to feel like that. She wasn’t short of a try, nor anything that followed, but—as absurd as it was—she never thought that she’d enjoyed the most a kiss in such precarious circumstances. Maybe it rendered it _special_. Maybe she was just this lonely. Maybe it was him. Her only certainty was that she didn’t want it to end. And he was obliging, his hands moving a little more confidently, fingertips carding into her hair, palm pressing, holding her against himself.

Jyn tentatively parted her lips, very aware of every painful pressure she might exert on him, but unable to resist. Only the barest hesitation before he joined and met her, opening the kiss. And under the taste of blood, she found his own on her tongue. It felt like dancing… not competitive; symbiotic, each speaking to and learning from each other and building something more than their sum. His fingers flowed to caress the nape of her neck through her hair. Goosebumps covered her skin, there, spreading to her extremities.

The air definitely felt warmer. Or maybe was she just burning up on her own. Jyn had the urge to get bolder, to keep exploring him with kisses and hands, but she couldn’t. Not without the absolute certitude that it wasn’t just her own impulse.

She stopped herself, breathing hard against his skin. He matched her at once, not withdrawing but pausing.

“You know what I kept thinking about while I tried to sleep?” she whispered.

“What?” he whispered back.

“You and me having sex in a really big, comfortable bed.”

He exhaled with a bit of a groan in it. “Good thought.” His fingers curled on her back, shifting the fabric of her shirt, as if he needed a handhold. “…who would we be, though?”

“Anyone you want to be,” she offered. And he might have interpreted it as an allusion to her forging skills, but it wasn’t entirely true. She lacked the words and the eloquence to express it. She could only try. “Someone no one else knows.”

When nothing else had, that struck him dumb. For a while, his eyes searched her face. At last, he said, “And you?”

“Me?” she said, lost in the deep of his eyes. “I don’t know… Someone you remember.”

Another speechless moment. Until he said: “Who we already are, then.” And craned forward to another kiss.

The words felt warm and heavy in her chest. Partly because it was so alien to her and yet, one of the things she craved so desperately, partly because it sounded puzzlingly honest. ( _Not just me, then_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: “psychological capture” usage from https://mentalpod.com/archives/3990


	2. Chapter 2

_(You can **not** be serious._ That mental voice, for years now, sounded like Kaytoo.)

 _Mid-mission!_ Well: this was the easiest a mission could get. He’d lost. Not such that he needed to change the game and nothing further likely. Things being as bad as they got was uniquely relaxing. You needn’t use energy avoiding the pit after you’d fallen in. The most constructive he could be was stay calm, conserve energy, don’t exacerbate injuries.

…none of which included building any kind of _relationship_ with a fellow prisoner. That wasn’t stable or static. And what they were doing now… not so much conserving energy nor favoring wounds.

 _(You don’t know her. …Not sure I know **you** right now.) _Cassian didn’t _do_ this. It only seemed this easy when he pretended it was. But this… unnecessary, unplanned, inadvisable, ( _genuine?!)…_ … …when was the last time it had been any of those? Had it ever…?

But… she… he… even before they’d reached _this_ moment… maybe something he’d never had, but learning of it felt like restoration…

Her hand dragged lower down his neck, almost too soft, and her fingers closed around the collar of his shirt. Her tongue traced his bottom lip and she kissed him again, nose pressed against his nose, before she said: “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He wasn’t sure he could explain. The hurt was _welcome._ It heightened and affirmed that this was _real and now_ —“I’ll let you know if anything hurts too much.”

She snorted, only half-convinced, as if she knew how derisive he always acted about his own pain. She innocently kissed his cheek. “I’ve got a better idea.” And the shine in her eyes felt inexplicable, yet still earned. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

…

_What **I** want?_

_(‘Want’ never improved anything.)_

With partners, he’d always crafted everything to the effect [he needed to have] on them. Here, the only effect he wanted to have on her… _relief,_ maybe? Pleasure as reprieve from pain, choice to counter imprisonment, companionship as release from the cold—

What did he _want._

Okay.

He gently moved out from under her, sat upright, and set his back against the thawing wall. He held out his hand. “Come here?”

She grabbed his hand without reserve and moved to follow him. She straddled him and, even posted as far away as possible from the door, she peered over her shoulder for a second. A part of her brain still on alert. When that impulse felt satisfied, she looked back at him and she sat a bit closer. Her fingers laced with his own, she waited in silence, chest almost touching him.

“What else?”

He looked up for her eyes, aware of how it bared his pulse and throat. Negligible, symbolic; his injuries, her signifiers of being a fighter: she could physically best him from any position. It still felt… like something. The fingers she’d interwoven, he tightened. His other hand traveled her body from thigh to shoulder then to wrist, finding and guiding her other hand to his chest.

“Warned you,” he said softly. “I can’t help much. Just trusting you not to break me.”

A smile stretched her lips. She ducked her head lower. “I told you, I can do everything. If that’s what you want.”

“Yes.” —and then he had to kiss her. His lips to her throat this time, chasing every flex of sinew, following column and curve and expanding upon everything that brought a wonderful reaction. His hand, from holding the back of hers, flew again to her waist, her lower back; guiding or following her movements.

She bared her neck to him, now. Her hand moved up his chest, coming over his shoulder, down his arm, to his chest again. She seemed to test the waters, drawing a mental map of the places she could touch him without a hint of discomfort. Caressing his torso, neck, sides, barely more than the brush of fingertips at first. Coming back to places she marked safe to proceed; a more earnest touch. She didn’t let go of his other hand.

Her lips were chapped and in need of water, but she kissed him like it was all a luxury. She diverted her attention to his throat, maybe leaving another sort of bruise on him. Her warm breath tickled his ear. “Can I get it open?” she asked, holding the front of his tunic.

He had to catch his breath from what her mouth was doing to him. “Yes.” Wasted more: “Surprised it isn’t in pieces already.”

She pulled on the fabric and the clasps diligently opened (or maybe fell apart). She reached behind his neck, then, dexterous fingers working on a knot, and the last of his blindfold was gone. “Better,” she said. Her warm palm pressed against his skin with a thrilling feeling of _first._

It felt like she’d released him from something much heavier than cloth. He kissed her fingers when they came near. His own kept tracing and kneading her, down her back; paused at her waistline. He took delicate hold of her shirt and barely tugged; not enough to untuck, just to question: “Can I?”

She nodded.

Resting his temple to her, he drew the shirt loose, and left it hanging so his hands could slip under, flat to the topography of her back.

Her skin was unsurprisingly scarred, in some places more deeply than others, a mirror to his own. She didn't act self-conscious about it. She curled on his shoulder like a lothcat. The comfort and trust of that inflamed him more than any teasing could. He caressed her spine for all its length, revelling in and encouraging further relaxing, encircling her—hugging her, with his forearm vanished inside her shirt. She breathed her content in the crook of his neck with a small sound of approval.

Her hand kept tracing slow, caressing patterns on his good side. She kissed a point below his ear while her fingers followed a line of dark hair from his navel to his belt. She didn’t go past it. She pressed her hips harder down on him, and he felt the graze of her teeth against his skin.

“Number one unlikely place where I’ve been doing this,” she whispered.

“I think I’ve been in worse.” There was a hitch in his breath as his hips met hers. “Hard to remember anything… not… here.”

 _(Be careful. That sounds like a line._ Maybe for him, by now, sounding natural required acting…)

“I might be jealous,” she said.

He breathed against her skin. “Which part?”

“If I can’t be the most compromising fuck you had.”

If she’d said it differently or been someone else—but she didn’t and she wasn’t, so he kissed her his smile. “There are things I like a lot better than ‘compromising’.”

She teased a kiss on his lips. “Things I’m doing right, I hope.”

“Yes.” He kissed her fully. Intermittent—hardly aware—he whispered: “I… _believe…_ you.”

He could tell, as soon as the meaning hit her, a small surprise moved her chest higher. She was too close to look at him, but her eyelashes fluttered against his face. “I like that.”

“Good…” He cradled her head and the small of her back and joined a kiss, so deep he wouldn’t mind if it knocked him out. She pressed herself flat on his chest. Her hips instinctively rocked against him and she moaned into his mouth.

—

Here’s a thing about pain: it’s so context-dependent. Many agents withstood actual torture better than anti-interrogation training, where it was hard not to think: _This doesn’t have to be happening stop stop just stop._ With actual torturers, one could think, _Every moment I feel this is buying help for someone else._ It went beyond conscious thought. The psychology affected how the sensation registered from nerve-endings to insular cortex. The pain was physically lessened.

(Except for those hideous cases like sadists or inquisitioners [redundant] where they don’t care about actual intel. Then there’s no way out.)

These were not sexy thoughts. Cassian didn’t have them consciously. The reality was present in deciding not to externalize when any part of her hit any bruise on him. He knew she didn’t want to hurt him. At the same time… accepting this behavior had to accept that inevitability, but also transmuted it. A bruise hurting from struggling with shackles or trying to sleep on a hard floor was one thing. A bruise hurting under the thigh of an unexpected stellar flare of a partner was very, very different. Pain was always a hyper-gauge of whatever was happening. Suddenly ‘whatever was happening’ was _good._

All of which amounted to: some things hurt, and it was profoundly okay. He didn’t want to stop and didn’t want _her_ to stop, anything.

Her hands traveled back down over his chest as she restored some distance between them. Her lips didn’t leave, only asked “Okay?” when she hooked her fingers on the inside of his belt.

“Yes.” His fingers traced her counterpart. “This, too…?”

“Yeah.” She lifted her weight off him, allowing her to unbuckle the cracked leather. A rustle of fabric, some buttons out of the way, and she was unceremoniously inside his pants. He noticed the trace of urgency in her gestures, one born out of habits (necessity, maybe), but her touch was gentle when she closed her fingers around his strainingly hard self.

He’d just (less dexterously) gotten _her_ pants undone. Thank the Force. At the feel of her, her hand, he was just able to slip his hand in to touch her, too. The other flew back to her cheek, framing another kiss.

It was breathless and trembling. She almost bit his lip. “Hmm,” she groaned, “sorry.”

Which spun his head more: her hand around him or the way his was making her move… He ran his fingers on her until he had mapped the way, then focused on applying just one. At the same time, he let himself push slightly up in her grip.

Somewhere amid all that, (unhesitating though breathlessly shaky) he answered her apology: “What in Space for?”

She exhaled a heavy breath and shook her head. But then grabbed his wrist: “Wait.”

He stopped, resting his arm in her hand, giving her control. She took her hand back and moved his own out the way, leaving a cold feeling between them. She dragged her fingers inside her own pants, eyes closed, and pulled out just as quickly. When she returned to him without question, the added slickness of her grasp made it way easier to move her wrist up and down. Way more pleasurable, too.

“Put that hand back where it was,” she breathed out like an order.

Holy… that… she… His brain shorted out. They didn’t know each other, they probably wouldn’t get to, their reasons and expectations for this act verged on utilitarian, but _that…_ He wanted to grasp this—The balance between self-containment and choosing to affirm; a kind of dominance display yet used _for_ him… oh… _oh._ Okay. He’d think about it ( _endlessly_ ) later. His hand slid down where she guided again, craving the feel of her; his mouth on hers, her jaw, her neck; his other hand to the small of her back under her shirt… He balanced her pressure points and drew them closer yet.

She suppressed her voice into his skin, breathing hard, and following his hand with her hips. Her focus on him stayed unimpaired. Her ability to keep at least part of her entirely dedicated to the task, no matter the distraction, wasn’t her only skill (and this was obviously not her first handjob.)

He tried to keep some control of his abs and hips… didn’t want to move too forcefully up to her… not ’cause he thought she’d mind, but to try to maintain, prolong, the precarious balance, the fulcrum… (and also not break anything…) Again, he deliberately held onto a portion of pain. There were other ways to keep himself in check but—oh, skies, she was… this was…

He didn’t buck up against her. He did wrap his arm around her fully and pull her in to him. His forehead beside her neck, his lips to her chest, his almost-forgotten fingers still gentle, still savoring her pulse point in her most slaking flesh. He almost said it aloud—something about extraordinary circumstance usually _didn’t_ mean _this extraordinarily **good** …_

With the next strategic stroke of his fingers, she failed to control her voice. A low whimper died on her swollen lips.

“Do you want more?” she asked.

He groaned, _“Yes.”_ Managed to continue, crucially: “If you do. Only if you do.”

Her next set of actions wasn’t as collected as she’d been up until now. She let go of him again and sat back next to him. She reached for her left boot, unzipped it, and tossed it off. She pushed down her pants and underwear in one quick motion, getting one leg free. Nothing more than strategic necessity. Ready to swing back into an alert state. Nothing less, still.

The next moment, she was back on top of him, skin exposed. She grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him deep (same urgency returning.) He leaned to her grasp, arching back to meet her. Her free hand lingered between them, guiding him to her.

She paused her kiss to breathe out a deep-chested moan as she lowered herself onto his length. He felt without hearing himself vocalize with her. She felt like moonlight, enfolding him, tissues gliding, muscles pressing, a soft shared pulse; where she silken held him feeling like she was smoothing and soothing him everywhere at once… and _her_ _voice, her face_

Cassian didn’t close his eyes. They stayed fixed on hers. Not vigilance. Not analyzing. Just rapt. _I believe you…_ Whatever it meant, amid all this madness. It was true.

He ran a hand up her spine. Under her hair to caress and cup her head as they kissed. Then both his hands flowed to follow her waist, thighs, ass, curving and moulding his palms to her there, following and urging her ever deeper to ride him.

She groaned the most obscene Rodian curse he’d heard in a long time. She pushed one of her hands flat on the wall next to his head, holding her upright while she rolled her lower body against him. “Shit, I’m so turned on… I can’t believe people survive you when you’re in one piece.”

His inaudible laugh had an unmissable effect on him inside her. Again… she’d said something, that any other time, from anyone else, would make him freeze. But here, now, how she said it… _Who **are** you? How are you doing this? to feel this… familiar… this right… _His hands ran over her, tirelessly, momentarily curving around her ribs to pull her closer again so he could pant in her ear, “Tell me… something you like… so I can do it.”

Her face disappeared over his shoulder. She kissed his collarbone, harsh breath against his hot skin. “I like your _dick_ ,” she said, abrasive humor on display. This laugh almost vocalized but he did _not_ want to interrupt. “I like… I—”

She didn’t finish, hips moving relentlessly to pull pleasure out of their sweating bodies. Her thighs opened wider on each side of him, muscles stretched. She pushed down until she was fully seated on him. And did it again. And again. He arched almost double from the wall. He hoped he’d be able to keep parsing language.

“I want to come,” she said, at last. “I don’t know if I can— can you try… I liked your fingers on me.”

Cassian focused hard on the bruises for a moment; because he could’ve come right then from her words; but far more, if they could, he wanted to feel _hers,_ from inside. Pushing himself a little more upright, he strained to kiss her mouth, and trailed his hand down her body: cheek, throat, collar, breast, stomach, then where they wanted, where she radiated, pinpoint focus and gentlest touch, resisting mimicking the _grip_ he was… breathlessly… _luxuriating_ in from her; rapt to her movements and breath and face, even as the feel of her on his own hardest point radiated through, disintegrating, his whole body; reciprocated by unbroken fluid circling on her, just above, there…

She tensed. From her shoulders to her back to her legs. But it wasn't the tension of a fight, not the one meant to harm.

Her breathless voice confirmed as much. “I like that. …Just imagine… if we had… if we went on a proper date…” Her hand curled into his hair and the words became a low whisper. “Next to the beach… and that fucking bed…”

A fantasy in her mind, yet _he_ was part of it. Not any former lover she might’ve liked better than a stranger. She chose him.

And whatever he was visualizing… wasn’t anywhere he already knew… so why not think maybe, somehow, she was conjuring the image for both of them…? so they _were_ meeting there…

The urge to say her name caught in his throat. He didn’t have it to say. It wasn’t _Kestrel_ and he didn’t want to appropriate or sexualize _Stardust._ It was the desire to _touch_ her in _every way,_ when they were already at the deepest-highest limits of physicality, and wouldn’t go further in _familiarity,_ but there was still, for them, _recognition…_ …and he remembered the source of her name, and it wasn’t a real one either, but somehow felt better, closer… it rose from his chest, and if it was ridiculous and meant nothing to her, it wouldn’t be recognizable as more than a groan anyway. _“Dawn.”_

Her hand fell from the wall and gripped his shoulder instead. “I like your voice,” she confessed.

“I like yours,” he whispered back.

“Well, that’s _perfect_ ,” she said and the note of happy sarcasm died down in the middle of a moan. Her hips had lost the pattern. She bit her lip, falling silent, and even her breathing seemed to pause for a moment. He stopped his body and moved only his finger. Her head fell forward and against him. He rested his head on hers. If only he knew her, so he could choose the right words to caress her ear… He whispered in a language she was unlikely to know, because occasionally communication was not about vocabulary (which could just distract) but the _act,_ choosing to speak, to acknowledge and share and stroke over with soundwaves…

A shiver broke her stillness. She gripped his shoulder harder just when she reached the highest point of her pleasure. Her body clenched around him in hard waves, keeping him so deep inside of her. It was _so, yes, just exactly_ what he’d craved, that her rippling muscles and tissues pulled his out, too. He throbbed out into her, arms simultaneously tightening and body sagging, holding them in collapse together.

For a while, they got to live in that. Collapse… emptied… The freedom of having fallen… _(the reliefdream of you)_

“Sorry, I should have asked,” he murmured at last. It risked ruining the moment; he tried to have it add the soft, low vibration of speech to his embrace of her. “But I’m covered.” They’d already confirmed the signifiers in their… examinations of one another.

She let it slide unanswered. She waited until the pulsing of her walls gradually died down, climbing down from that ecstasy thrill. The next breath she took felt like she hadn’t tasted oxygen in years.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You can’t get me pregnant.”

His brain was so dissolved—pulsed and poured out of him with everything else—it took him a moment to realize: that _wasn’t_ redundant. He avoided any physical reaction… except to spread his hands to hold more of her back. Whoever she was, whyever that was, he desperately hoped it had been solely her own choice.

She relaxed her hand from around his shoulder and smoothed out the imprint of her nails on his skin with a guilty caress. He turned his head enough to touch her fingers with the side of his mouth. She nuzzled into his hair while her breathing evened out, and made it seem as if neither of them was dirty and smelling and in bloody rags.

He’d wondered if she’d push off and away immediately. He was… _liking, (too) much_ that she didn’t. He relished their sink into each other, here against the wall.

 _He never did things this way._ It felt good (for now) that they had. Like they’d helped each other steal back something better, when everything else was against them. —but not a means to an end. Just… … Oh, why try to articulate everything? She was still draped on him and he held her and, for the moment, whether or not future ones, it was so good.

“You don’t even wanna know how long it's been since someone got me loose,” she said. “I’m gonna have to keep you.”

_Keep you._

_(Not a foundation for recruitment._ …but part of what had made it so good… hadn’t he arguably talent-spotted for less…?)

“If we get out of here the way I’m hoping,” he said softly. “If you… found… us, to your liking… I would definitely… help… you stick around. …Not just dependent on… being with me, but…” Oh, pfassk; words, much? …possibly she might recognize, somewhere in there, his version of _Can I keep you, too?s_

_(Meaning it possibly more than she actually had)_

Her eyes widened in the dark. She traced the side of his face with feather-light fingers. Then she stirred up in his lap and finally restored some distance between them. He watched her taking off her jacket as she stood up and used it to clean herself off. She hopped on one leg while dressing up and finally zipped back her lost boot. He stayed still, berating himself for the slip.

“You still hope you can save this, uh?” she said.

Unexpectedly, she sat back beside him, back to the wall. He adjusted to better fit next to her—refastening his clothes, too.

“I’m not at my most objective, right now,” he said. “But… yes.”

A little smile appeared on her lips. She turned her face to him, and the unguarded sadness piercing in her eyes recontextualized her whole expression.

“Yeah, well…” She cleared her throat. “If I don’t die soon, let’s do this again.”

He refrained from touching her. Just because _his_ hormone-soaked mind had started whirring ahead didn’t mean she was offering anything deeper. Nor did he want to imply she, either of them, had had such ulterior motive. _It was just a moment. A really good moment._ Nonetheless… “Let’s try to keep you from dying, for a start.”

 _(Let’s._ He hadn’t declared allegiance to the Rebellion so quickly. But, yes. They could part ways after, but he’d decided: if he could do anything about her situation, he would.) He flashed her a sidelong smile. _“Then_ let me know, if you want.”

She laughed. Her fingers brushed his hand. “Even if we don’t see each other again, I’m glad someone cared for a minute…”

The pain of those words… _Don’t get ahead._ But maybe… maybe.

He curved his fingers; without claiming her hand, returning her touch. “Yes.”

⁂

Jyn tried not to let the words sink too deep. She didn’t need that sort of emotional turmoil. She didn’t need… when she had to think of the next move… of the strategic option… She had to keep herself alert, ready to _fight_.

The tiredness in her bones had never felt more insurmountable.

It wasn’t just the physical act, which—alright—wasn’t her brightest idea, to begin with. ( _Debatable_. It was really _that_ good.) But she could push past that type of soreness. She couldn’t, however, shake the exhaustion of her… mind. It terrified her. The crack in the walls. The urge to seek comfort. The idea of _weakness._

She tried to oppose the pull, to seal that need away from her. He made it just that difficult. Whoever he was… with his soft voice and his stupidly gentle hands… and his _caring_ words. For Force’s sake, who did he think he was, giving her dangerous hopes on such bad timing? Fuck him—

But she'd already done _that_ , and it only made it worse.

_— I would definitely help you stick around. Not just dependent on being with me, but…_

Jyn turned the words over and over inside her head. He couldn’t mean it, could he? ( _Being with me._ ) Why did it hurt so bad? Why did she want it that bad? This was just a quick fuck in a cell with a stranger. A nice interlude amidst chaos. He didn’t offer anything else. Cooperation, maybe. Not a marriage license. _Pull yourself together, stupid fedejik._

Jyn tried to. She fought with all she had, but maybe down the line, the years of running and hurting had finally caught up with her… getting under her skin like cold rain. No shaking it off, now.

_Would you look at that; the feral partisan girl, beaten up by her miserable feelings._

Saw would’ve been ashamed of her. But Saw had left her for dead on fucking Tamsye Prime like a stray cat, so—as far as she was concerned—Saw could get fucked into the nearest sun. See if she cared anymore.

Jyn surrendered with a dash of defiant anger. She lowered herself to the ground, turned on her side, and placed her head on his thighs. Just for a minute… or ten… or a quick nap… Not long, she promised, not _forever_. Just long enough to combat the cold and to remember the smell of him.

He might have had a moment of surprise. Or possibly he waited to make sure she actually stayed. Then his hand touched her head. When she didn’t shake it off, his gentle fingers combed softly through her hair. Jyn closed her eyes and didn’t move a single muscle, hoping he would never stop.

⁂

Cassian was pretty sure he’d been sitting against the wall when he fell asleep. (Running his fingers through Kestrel’s hair, wracking his brains to try and emulate Kaytoo in assessing probabilities; trying to plot what, if anything, he could do to help her, share the help with her, in any of them.)

He was waking up, though, lying on the floor ~~beside~~ behind her, pressed together; his arm slung over her waist, her hand holding his to her chest.

He wondered if this was situational. Both of their body chemistries being so churned up by imprisonment (loneliness) and processing (pain). Encountering anyone amenable could result in attraction.

…But ‘amenable’ was key. And went beyond desperation or arousal. There needed to be the agreement, the like-mindedness… the recognition.

…So, no. Not circumstance. This was…

…

… _weird._ Galactically weird. Never-before-in-his-life kind of—

The pressure around his hand increased without warning. She let out a mumble of words that suspiciously sounded like _‘don’t go’,_ but he couldn’t be certain.

That wasn’t a promise either of them was in a position to keep. (Now or…) But he could tighten his arms around her, touch his face to the back of her head, and murmur, “I’m here.”

A little shockwave passed through her body. She turned her head to the side and sighed. “Oh, yeah… we’re still in this box…,” she said, as if she’d lost her surroundings for a while. She didn’t try to move away from him. She hooked her foot behind his calf, which was a clear enough subtext on its own. He closed any remaining space between them, hugging her close, and wondered what this felt like when people _did_ know they could stay… could keep…

Her fingers played with his hand in silence. The degree of familiarity between them seemed misplaced and dangerously tilting the equation. She must have been aware of it, too. She didn’t look like the kind to spare other’s feelings. But her reactions felt… _so_ real.

He wasn’t good at dissociating. Too trained to maintain awareness, monitor self and surroundings. He couldn’t exactly imagine his wounds or their cell (definitely not the hard floor) away. For a moment, though, he tried to go there. Tried to visualize them together, like this, but… somewhere… safe. Not the dream vacation they’d played at teasing each other with. Somewhere real. All he had (to offer, anyone) was a room only slightly less sparse than this one and a too-small bunk… but he thought her there. The bunk would work out if they stayed this close all night. (And that sounded… so good.) They could enjoy his main perk as an officer and take their time in the private ’fresher. They’d go do their separate work (because she would definitely have her own, he could tell she’d want it and be good at it). Sometimes they’d meet in mess to eat together before retiring at the same time. More often, one or the other of them would quietly enter the quarters after the other was asleep; get ready stealthily, to keep the atmosphere, even knowing the other had woken as soon as they accessed the door; and slip into the bed and their arms around the other, and they’d turn together to kiss and press, and maybe fall right back asleep, but sometimes maybe…

She turned to face him, pressing her face into his chest. A grumpy voice complained: “I have to pee so bad.”

It would be nice to be in a situation where he could laugh at that. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “The far corner. They’ve hospitably supplied us with a grate.” (…hmm, the fantasy of that private ’fresher was particularly nice, too…)

She snorted a reply. “So glad I’ve already fucked you so we can jump straight to being bros.” _(I think that’s what I meant, though… we did **because** we seem to be… and which is rarer…)_ He said nothing. She didn’t display any intention to move, though, and circled an arm around him. “How’s your… bruising collection?”

“Not worse,” he pressed his smile to her hair so she could hopefully feel it, “—somehow. You were gentle.”

“Good.” Her hand moved to his face, pushing away his hair and she looked at him with an unreadable expression. He tried to read her anyway and failed. Partly ’cause he wasn’t just looking, he was… _wanting. (Want improves nothing—Incarceration fabricates relationships—That’s not all this is. It’s not.)_

A sudden force of deceleration made them roll on the floor. They braced themselves and froze in anticipation. She pushed on her hands to kneel, attentively listening to the ambient sounds of their moving prison. With a final protest, the ion engines died down, leaving an ethereal silence behind after so many hours of constant vibrations.

“Shit.” She was on her feet the next second. “I think we’re done.”

He went up to one knee, crouched, cautious, prepped to launch. If they were gonna extract him, it would be as he was moved off the ship. His eyes flickered to Kestrel. He still mustn’t say so aloud; not because he still wondered if she’d tell, but because someone still might be listening. (The most common reason to put prisoners together if neither was false… and they weren’t. He was sure.)

“Remember what we talked about?” he said to her.

“Yeah, yeah…” She pulled out a pair of leather gloves from a pants’ pocket and slid them in, tightening the straps around her wrists without looking away from the only exit. “Listen, if I don’t—”

She didn’t have time to finish. The door opened with an unpleasant screech of rusty metal. A bright, aggressive light illuminated the inside of the cell. How strange: remembering the _outside_ after so many hours. Everything looked different and foreign, intruding on the small world they had built between the two of them. Kestrel put the weight of her body on her back leg. Silhouettes entered the space.

“Why aren’t they kriffing chained up?” an irritated voice asked. “Fucking mercs.”

They moved towards her first. “Get that one to transit. ISB is already waiting for him.”

_(Fuck.)_

Maybe it was wishful thinking to try to tame a wild animal. The moment they put a step too close, the sound of electrobatons sizzling in the air to intimidate the prisoners, Kestrel snapped out of it. Her right leg shot up and caught the first guard in the mid-section. She launched forward and grabbed his arm, pulling so hard in the opposite direction that bones might have suffered.

She suddenly had a baton in hand and used it on the next opponent without blinking twice.

_(No—don’t—you can’t win in here, it’ll just make them guard you tighter, treat you worse, close opportunities later—_

_‘I won’t go back’)_

For a confusing stretch of time, screams filled the small cell and people kept rushing inside, trying to put her down. She had the upper-hand at first, sent four men to the ground, got rid of another with a solid kick of her boot in the face. But the numbers were against her. She knew it. She glanced at him—he could read it all in her eyes. The almost apology.

She jumped in front of him.

He’d had his hands spread when the door opened, so a guard had had him pinned, right in the injuries, before she moved; before the fight broke out. He couldn’t have helped if he’d…

(…not ‘wanted to’. He _**had**_ wanted to. He just knew it wouldn’t do what they wanted it to do—)

But with Kestrel suddenly in front of him, Cassian reared back his head, slamming it into the face of his captor. The guard was completely blindsided (and blinded) and staggered backward, releasing him. For the shortest moment, it was just Cassian and Kestrel as she pulled him down to her lips.

That kiss was bitter and desperate. Someone finally grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back. She resisted just long enough to whisper: “Jyn.”

_(…Jyn… Jyn… I’ll remember, Jyn—)_

And then she was dragged away, beaten up until they could restrain her for good, and she disappeared through the door. Cassian wouldn’t realize until he had to account for new injuries, later, that he _had_ thrown himself into the fight, then, (so feking ineffectually,) after her.

When Cassian’s rescuers did indeed ambush his captors as they escorted him off the ship, he tried to get them to go after her. But the Imperial ship she’d been shoved onto had already flown away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, leave us a little comment, and see you on the last part! 💖


	3. Chapter 3

Jyn hated everything on fucking Wobani.

She hated the place, cold and humid and dark. Her clothes were never fully dry, always sticking to her irritated skin somehow. It trapped the cold inside, under her skin, clinging to her bones. She couldn’t shake it off. She couldn’t escape it, even under the poor excuse of a blanket she’d been ‘gifted’ with. (No one to share warmth with… _Don't think of— Don't._ )

She hated the cellmate. The Blutopian was a threat to her life. Had already expressed the desire to end it. Jyn wasn’t exactly sure to know _why_ but she only needed to know _when_ , so she could do it first. That’s how those things were supposed to go, always. (The memory of… _him_ … was just an anomaly in the system.)

She hated the work, too. Fucking Empire. What were they even trying to build with this much durasteel? Nonsensical. The work was just an excuse to watch them fall to their deaths rather sooner than later. No one lasted long on Wobani. A few years, five at most. Jyn had earned twenty years of labor, courtesy of Solange, and she already knew she wouldn’t live to see half of it.

She wasn’t sure why she bothered to put up with this misery. Maybe she should have let Kennel plant that shiv in her throat.

(“When we’re going to the field, today. That’s when I’ll do it,” she’d said.)

_Well, be my guest. Maybe I’ll take you with me._

Jyn sat still inside the armored vehicle transporting the selected workforce of the day. Getting outside of that prison was still a luxury compared to factory work. Jyn liked those days better… even met with her murderous cellmate’s instincts. _Fucking psychopath_.

The unpleasant rocking of their transport on the rough and uneven terrain stopped. Jyn tensed without reason.

The stormtrooper in the entryway, who’d managed to strike the most put-upon posture even compared to all the _prisoners,_ grumbled to his feet. “What now?”

“I dunno,” said another dehumanized voice. “Must be another pickup.”

The first one frowned audibly through his helmet. “I thought we had everybody.”

He started to turn at a sound and was just in time to fling up his hands as the door exploded open.

The people outside must have infrared viewers, or a killdroid. No organic eyes could adjust that fast from the sunlight (such as it was on this planet) to the shadowy compartment—no more quickly than the stormtroopers could adjust the other way around. Two immediate shots hit each ’trooper stone dead.

Jyn was struggling to make her eyes adjust, too; she went more by sound and silhouette at first. Just by that, she knew whoever entered was military (sturdy boots hitting the metal, steps in time therefore in formation, all holding weapons of the same shapes at the same angles, and then one voice shouting “All clear!”). She was able to make out their camo gear when ice spiked through her spine with one yelling, “Hallik! Liana Hallik!”

She didn’t have to decide how/whether to react, because someone sold her out on the spot. “Her!”

_Thanks, shithead._

The soldier stopped in front of her. “You wanna get out of here?”

Well, if asked so politely, she wasn’t about to say ‘no’. Jyn nodded without a sound and held her wrists up. The soldier bent to release them. The second before the restraints unclicked, one of Jyn’s fellow inmates shouted from across the cabin, “Hey! What about me?”

The soldier freeing her made the huge mistake of looking over his shoulder. She wasn’t going to wait and see what those people wanted from _Liana Hallik._

Jyn slammed her foot into the man's chest and propelled him onto the opposite wall. She turned around with the inertia of her attack and punched someone else hard enough to send them to the ground. Without wasting her momentum, she grabbed the nearest shovel from a rack of equipment. The next in line received a blow to the face with her improvised truncheon, clearing the way to the exit. _Alright, time to go_. Jyn made a run for it.

No matter what awaited outside, she’d take her chances.

 _Anything’s better than another cage_.

She simultaneously hit the doorway, the sunlight, and an obstacle right across the chest. —an arm. Someone outside had somehow seen her coming and counter-tackled.

 _Right... the fucking sniper._ She’d expected a droid. But it was a humanoid soldier with an infrared visor obscuring their face. They bodyslammed and clasped her in both arms, dragging her off her balance so she couldn’t counterstrike in turn. Well, they were in for a kriffing—

In the moment of having her pinned, they ripped off the visor.

Jyn had only seen half his face properly, but the unbruised reality was unmistakable. Unrivaled _._ She sagged against him instantly, too shocked to process or to react, until her lungs started to scream for her to take another breath.

Those warm, worried, beautiful dark eyes—so much older and yet just the same—searched her face. ‘Ash-rabbit’ said, “Hi?”

Jyn twisted in his arms and grabbed the front of his gear, maybe to make sure that he wouldn’t disappear. “Took you long enough,” she complained like it wasn’t the most unexpected turn of events, _ever_. Inside her chest, her heartbeat was maddening.

_You came back for me—_

He hugged her hard and fast; refrained (as only he in the Galaxy seemed inclined, even/especially now) from kissing her mouth; did kiss her temple, and breathed in her ear, “Congratulations. You’re being rescued. Sorry I’m late.”

“I forgive you,” she smiled, full of arrogance, only so she didn’t cry in his arms.

⁂

They made it to their transport without further action. These deserted stretches of Wobani were barren and desolate, second only to… well, the inhabited parts. It had been a sodden purgatory of a planet even before the Empire made it their Undesirables vacc vat.

They boarded and got their U-Wing into hyperspace without incident. Only then did they exhale.

They set about, with varying success, to rid themselves of mud. In the case of the two Jyn had clobbered, they also bound their wounds. Melshi looked particularly beleaguered, with his bloody nose plugged with medical gauze. He _wanted_ to resent Jyn, but didn’t. Cassian could tell—hoped she might—that none of them blamed her for not trusting them. (Why _would_ she, there?) They’d admit later they respected her moves and how she’d tried to take control of her fate.

They wouldn’t let _her_ know that so easily, of course. “Not so sure I’m happy about picking up your girlfriend,” Melshi groaned, walking past him.

“You know how and when I’m paying you back,” answered Cassian.

The man shrugged and broke off a short laugh. “You think she’ll punch Draven, too?”

“Taking bets!” shouted Bey from the cockpit. Cassian rolled his eyes in Jyn’s direction (apology). Then tilted his head aftward (invitation).

She was unnaturally silent, carefully looking around, and cataloging everyone’s presence. Her arms crossed over her chest, soothing herself, she leaned her back against the wall. “Who’s Draven? Your boss?”

“Yes,” said Cassian, settling beside her. He’d pulled off the headgear and flak jacket and took up a lot less space. “I need to tell you some things.”

Her eyes flickered warily to the others. Cassian touched her hand. “They’re being jerks, but you can trust them. I do.” That was why it was Melshi, Stordan, and Jav in the cabin, with Bey flying, when any three of them were overqualified as subordinates on this sort of run. But Melshi was Cassian’s friend and the others were Melshi’s.

“I trust you,” she said without looking sideways.

The barest corner of his mouth curved. (Trying not to overdo...) He moved his hand, near but not touching her. “I couldn’t find you for a long time. But you’d mentioned an Imperial commander wanting you, and being a forger for hire. Our Intelligence gained an interest in Lucka Solange. When we flagged the counterfeits, I started following the trail. Then…

“…then. …I’m… um.” He glanced over. Melshi, Jav, and Stordan had crammed as close as they could to the cockpit and were loudly talking with Bey, ignoring Jyn and Cassian. _Friends, indeed._ “…I… don’t… put my personal life ahead of...” _(He didn’t **have** a personal life.) _“If I was gonna need any resources to get you…”

An awkward moment. He started again before she could. He wouldn’t put it on her to help him: he had to get this out. Whatever happened _after_ that… “You’ve guessed. We’re Rebellion. My CO—Draven—liked my pitch that you could help us get to Solange. That’s why he authorized this. So. I’m… using you, to get to the Empire. And I used the Empire to get to you.”

Moment to set teeth and mind race. “I’m telling you _now_ because… If you don’t want all that… those conditions, on top of…” Catch in his throat, “…staying with me. If you just want to be free. Then… done. Bey can let you off somewhere you want. Extraction will have officially failed.”

Too: why Melshi, Jav, Stordan, and Bey were here, and Kaytoo _wasn’t._ Kay’s loyalty to Cassian didn’t make him an adequate liar.

Jyn’s attention had snapped on him with a burning stare, her exhausted face even paler than the minute before. The rigid tension of her shoulders tipped him off. She loathed every word he’d just said. Her hands gripped her arms to the point of bruising.

“So, I’m… bait…,” she finally said, voice blank. “Makes sense.”

He frowned. “Not bait. A connection—an informant. We’re not gonna put you back in harm’s way for this. We _are_ gonna ask you… if only as a freelancer… to help us. To serve. For a while.” Tense-mouthed, “Like I said. Those… are the conditions of… you and I… spending more time together.” It sounded so juvenile… trivial… insufficient. It probably was.

 _Are you **sure** this isn’t all, really, because meeting her under those conditions chemically imprinted her on your brain? _Kaytoo had inquired.

( _And parts beyond?_ others would suggest.)

 _Very sure, thank you,_ said Cassian.

Kay had gone off muttering probabilities.

Cassian wished he was still _very sure._ “I don’t know how you feel about the Rebellion. Any of this. You don’t have to go there. It’s just... where _I_ am.”

Jyn ducked her head, lips pressed into a hard line. It didn’t take a profiler to know how she felt about the situation. “What if your people are not happy with me? What if it’s not enough? What happens when you decide to screw me over and toss me into another cell? I don’t know if you noticed, but Imperial or Rebel, a prison’s just the same!”

He raised an eyebrow. “You ever been in a Rebel prison?”

“Looking forward to completing my bingo card,” she said.

“In other words, no. Because we don’t have any. Even if we had the conditions for long-term incarceration… All of us are criminals by Imperial law. Most by other laws, too. We choose to be there; we don’t imprison and we don’t execute. Why would anyone choose us over the Empire if we did the same things?”

That gave her a long pause. He could almost hear her brain spinning faster than light-speed. She was a contrarian by nature. She didn’t like playing by other people’s rules. She didn’t like playing by _any_ rule. Untrusting, betrayed too many times, unwilling to show weakness. But somehow—

“So I just have to do what your boss says… and I get…,” she shifted against the wall, uneasy, “like what… a free pass for all the shits I’ve done?”

“Your actions seem to have been pretty clean.” (Something _not_ true of Cassian…) “Anarchic, illegal, but not victimizing. We’d rather put your skills to use for us. We’re not trying to police everyone who’s been forced to the margins. We’re kinda trying to champion them. …If you come with us, then change your mind, you can still leave.”

Another pause. Her head fell back and she exhaled from the core: “I’m just… I’m so _fucking_ tired.” Her arms uncrossed and all the tension left her like a broken bow. He almost didn’t hear her over the ship’s ambiance when she said: “I just want to stay with you.”

He finally put his hand to hers; his arm to shore her shoulders. There was still a tangle. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to recruit her, they couldn’t be differentiated now—but couldn’t they all be true? As long as she knew and agreed. Nothing was irreversible. …if only. “It’s not much,” he said gently. “But _my_ condition, if we succeeded: I’d get a full day and night. To settle you in. Before you had to meet anyone else or make any decisions. My quarters aren’t big but they’re private. Have own ’fresher. They’re at your disposal. I am, too.”

“I could use a shower,” Jyn said in a dreamy voice. “And I could use the company… if you tell me your name.”

Oh… right. Sheepish, he craned his head to look her in the eye. “Cassian. Andor.”

“Cassian…” she repeated. “I like that one.”

He wouldn’t kiss her unless/until it was perfectly clear that was _not_ a condition—of anything. He just gave her his fullest smile.

⁂

If he _hadn’t_ told her everything, she might’ve been the only person on the damn base who _didn’t_ know. People Cassian had never spoken to were peeking at them to see _who_ this person was, that Captain Droidface had stuck out his neck and other parts for. Jyn glared back at them a fair amount.

It did help having a KX security droid as an escort. But only before departing did Kaytoo address Jyn directly. “Cassian says you are a friend. I will treat you as such unless demonstrated otherwise.” The way he angled his photoreceptor at her came across very much like a side-eye. “Please do not demonstrate otherwise.”

Jyn huffed an abrasive reply: “I’ll be on my _best_ behavior.”

“Depending on baselines, that could mean anything. For example—”

“Thanks, Kay,” Cassian interrupted. “We’re pretty tired. Going to head in.”

Kay retilted his head at her. “If you inspire Cassian to sleep, maybe you _are_ beneficial. Good night.” He turned and walked away.

“Charming,” Jyn snickered (still uneasy about the _Imperialness_ of Kay).

“He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits,” said Cassian. “It’s a byproduct of the reprogram. …Part of why I like him.”

“I bet you do,” she said.

He flashed a small smile. He made sure she was looking before hitting his entry code.

The door slid open. Jyn followed his invitation, looking around her with a curious (yet practical) stare, assessing commodities. “Nicer than our last date, uh?”

He snorted a laugh. “What Kay just said about ‘baselines’.”

Everything Cassian did next was to show her. He tossed his jacket in a cleaning compartment. His hip and ankle blasters went in the bedside drawer. (Usually one rested on top, but not tonight.) His boots went beside the bunk where he could step back into them. He thumped a storage compartment to click open, revealing spare sheets, extra blankets, and a portable sleeping pallet. (To take note: She wasn’t obliged to share the bed with him. He suspected, hoped, she’d want to; but _he_ had to be able to trust that she did, too.) For now, he pulled out a towel and offered it to her, indicating the ’fresher door. “If you want anything not in there, let me know. We’ve been on this base for a while so we’ve actually stocked some amenities.”

She took the towel and nodded. “Okay.” With that, Jyn retreated away from view.

She didn’t close the door entirely. He heard the sounds of her clothes when she undressed, the water stream hitting the metal flooring, the change in resonance when she stepped under. For long minutes, nothing else moved inside the fresher, as if Jyn had disappeared from the surface of the planet.

For a moment, Cassian stood in the center of the room, and... breathed. He finally shook himself and turned to the data terminal. He’d start his mission report, which could take as much or as little time as Jyn needed to herself. He also belatedly remembered that he was dehydrated, and retrieved his canteen to swig while he worked. —Oh, feke, Jyn had to be much hungrier and thirstier than he was. He didn’t want to disturb her, though. Force knew _he’d_ need to be alone, for longer than one shower, to try and begin shaking off Wobani.

Eventually, though, he checked the chrono on the screen and decided; grabbing the canteen, he went to the door, opening it just enough to alert her he was there.

“Jyn,” he called. “Will you want any food? I have nutribars and water, here; can get things slightly less tasteless from mess.”

Only silence answered him.

He went ahead and asked the stupidest question. “You okay?”

At last, she said: “No.”

Of course not. His face hurt from sympathetic frowns. “Anything I can do?”

“Can you come in?”

That made his heart ache, more. “Yeah.” He set down the canteen. A pause to consider… then stripped off his tunic and fatigues, but left on undershirt and -shorts. He tapped on the shower panel.

Jyn produced a weird noise that might have been permission to join her. Cassian slid the panel open and took half a step in.

She stood under the waterhead with both hands against the wall, hair sticking to her wet skin between her shoulder blades, her body slightly… shaking… or fighting to breathe.

“Are you… is this…” She groaned, frustrated with her diction. “This isn’t… you came… _back_ … and nobody— Is this real or not?”

 _What kind of ‘real’…_ He wished his brain could calm the feke down sometimes, not always dissect. “We’re awake,” he said softly. “We’re really here. Everything I told you is true. I… don’t really know you, but I’d like to. And… help things… be better, at all, if I can.”

“Can you… hold me?” she asked with the tiniest voice.

He stepped to her immediately and wrapped her in his arms. (Undershirt instantly soaked through—garment designed to go through just about everything, shouldn’t be unpleasant between their skins.) He bowed his head to rest atop hers, furthering the embrace, and turned them just enough that the stream wouldn’t drown her.

Jyn leaned back against his chest, closing her arms around his. Her breathing was a little less shallow between words. “I thought… I’d never see you again…”

Had she always been so small? His impression of her was… measureless. “I didn’t know if I’d find you.” …The next was a _ludicrous_ thing for him— _him,_ who’d lost and broke away and had to leave so many—to say. It came out ’cause it was true. “I don’t think I’d’ve ever stopped looking.”

That got a wet sob out of her. “Why are you so fucking charming?” she weakly joked to mask it. “So unfair.”

“Comparison to Kaytoo,” he said at once.

“ _I’m_ charming compared to your droid… You… you’re a wild case.” She laughed a little and turned her head to the side. “I still want to keep you for myself.”

He hugged her a little tighter, wondering if his heart was pounding as hard in her ear as it felt. “How we met.. _._ I don’t think my instincts are wrong just ‘cause there’s also attraction. We… I don’t know where we go from here. I wanna find out.”

“No one ever fought for me like that, you know? I don’t exactly… _care…_ about your rebellion… But I care about you… so much… and I want to stay with you.”

“If you don’t mind that the Rebellion’s a lot of who I am,” he said, almost unwillingly. “I don’t need it to be yours. I want to stay with you, too.”

Cassian remembered Mon Mothma and Draven, at different moments in his life, sitting him down to talk about _why we fight._ Well… _this is why we fight. Everyone should get to know this, if only once. Even you._

Jyn reached out with a hand behind her, holding his neck. “Will I get kicked off for wasting water?”

He laughed. “Maybe in the dry season. It’s not the dry season, now.”

“I should probably… actually shower,” she finally said “See if I remember how to use soap.”

He cupped her head, through her silksodden hair, to kiss her crown. He stepped back to reach the soap and hold it to her. “I can help, or leave you to it.”

“Stay. Let’s be efficient for a change.”

His face muscles were _not_ used to this—it made all the _not_ smiling seem more difficult. “I’m gonna get rid of this, if that’s okay.” He indicated the underclothes, now so transparent and plastered, any difference it still made was not modesty.

“How dare you,” she mocked, “in front of a respectable criminal like me.”

“Pardon me, your decency.” He started soaping the front of the shirt.

She rolled her eyes and turned around to face him. “I quite remember riding your dick not three minutes after we met, so I think…” (She tugged at his shirt.) “...we can do without the awkwardness and hesitation around each other.”

His smile was smaller because it was more real. “Okay.” He handed her the soap, peeled off his shirt and shorts, and tossed them over the top of the panel. Then put his hand over the soap to take it back. “May I?”

She nodded, hands on his hips, a curious glow in her eyes. Cassian gently gathered her hair from her neck. He began washing her there and made his thorough way down. He knelt last to tend to her feet, then stood to offer her the soap to finish the places he’d elided—and to enjoy the way her wet hair moved as he brushed a lock from her shoulder.

“I’d like to use that shower a lot more,” Jyn whispered.

He breathed a laugh on her forehead as he leaned to say in her ear, “It _is_ the rainy season.”

“Lucky me.” Her hands framed his face with a soft touch. She brushed wet hair away from his forehead, looking at him like she’d never seen him before. “Your eyes are brown… All this time, I wonder about it.”

He ran his fingers through her hair, with some effect of washing it, but mostly so he could feel it in his hand. He looked back into her eyes, and it struck him. “You have gold, in yours. Is that why they called you ‘Stardust’?”

“You remember that…” she said, taken aback.

“Memory enhancement… Can’t romanticize that. Though real confidences tend to stick.”

“Hmm.” She raised her chin a little, a mischievous smile at the corner of her lips. “I’ll romanticize whatever I goddamn please, Mr. Andor, thank you very much.”

That was a kissable pfassking smile. “Fair enough.” He led her to turn so he could rinse out her hair. Once finished, he started washing himself. If she decided turnabout was fair play, fine by him; at the same time, they _had_ been here a while, and she must be so tired. “I didn’t get you any clothes,” he realized. (He hadn’t dared think further than… an hour ago.) “We can get yours washed overnight and you’re welcome to mine, meanwhile?”

“Anything’s fine. As long as I stop smelling like a dead blurrg.” She was wringing out her hair with both hands, ready to hop off the shower. A little shiver agitated her when she crossed the distance to retrieve the towel he’d handed her. She wrapped herself tightly in it, avoiding at all costs to look at her reflection in the foggy mirror hanging above sink.

“Clothes are in the compartment under the bedding,” he said. “Take anything.” _Or, nothing._ “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Small footsteps walked away.

Cassian finished scrubbing himself with more customary speed, plus wringing out the underthings for transit. He emerged, leaving the door open for the steam to disperse… to see the heartbreakingly loveable sight of Jyn-Kestrel-Dawn-Stardust- _Erso_ as a barely-distinguishable lump under the bedclothes.

She’d left room for him. He pulled on some sleeping pants and lifted the edge of the quilt, to warn her he was there. When her response was to scoot a little more over, he slipped in beside her, retucking the blanket around them both.

“I feel like I’m the queen of Onderon,” she said, melting against his side. “You even have a _pillow,_ you lucky bastard. A pillow!”

He made a mental note to grab a second one, tomorrow, so she could have her own. For now, he slipped his arms around her again—finding she was wearing one of his shirts. He felt like he’d only just learned the word _adorable._ “I like your priorities. Last person in here judged me for not personalizing.”

“What else could you possibly want when you have such a soft blanket?”

He kissed her forehead. Jyn draped a leg over him and snuggled as close as she physically could.

“You’re so warm,” she whispered blissfully, words slow on her tongue. “Let’s sleep together forever.”

He put his hand under her head to cradle her completely. “Yes. Please. G’night. Jyn.”

⁂

Jyn didn’t remember falling asleep. One second she was talking to him, the next she was gone. Those forgotten luxuries of warmth and comfort had been too much to overcome for her exhausted body. (Her little stunt on Wobani had definitely drained the last bit of energy she had in stock.)

In the middle of the night, Jyn had a residual moment of panic, waking up with the dreadful fear of finding herself back in a cold cell. The clean smell of sheets and warm skin against her back calmed her furious heartbeat. She turned around and clung to him like a lifeline, trying to fall back to sleep. Waking, too, or on instinct, Cassian wrapped her all the closer and held on. For a few more hours, her mind played nice and let her catch some rest.

For the first time in her life, Jyn woke up in someone’s arms… and nothing could’ve prepared her for _that._

She was ridiculous, really, but she couldn’t help the pounding of her heart. For all her wit and bad mouth, Jyn shyly wondered if she could have… something… more… with him. Just thinking about it was unusual enough. And thinking about him she had.

Jyn spent long minutes just looking at his sleeping face. He looked so much younger without that serious frown between his brows. She wondered how old he was. Blast, she wondered how old _she_ was. Her life had been a blurry stream of events for so long… When was the last time she’d even lain in bed like this?

With a tentative hand, Jyn brushed some hair out of his face.

Cassian jolted, muscles tensing. Just as quickly, he opened his eyes and relaxed again. “Hi. Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Oh. No. That’s the most _I’ve_ slept in… a while.” He moved his hand from lying passive across her, to tracing her hair. Jyn made an effort not to follow it.

“You’re adorable when you sleep,” she teased.

He choked a laugh. “I… thanks. You, too. Though you looked worried.”

“I had some dreams,” she explained. “I wondered if I would wake up back on Wobani.”

“Yeah… I hate those. Make sense, though.” He compressed her a little closer. “Do… I mean. Assuming we keep… Anyway. If you’re having a nightmare, do you want to be woken up? Or do you prefer to work through?”

She paused to think about it. The option had never been available before. “I don’t know… Maybe if I’m being too much of a pain to sleep with, wake me up.”

A small smile. “Okay. Me, too.”

Jyn agreed with a nod. She resumed her exploration of his face, letting her fingers trace his ear. A stupid smile gave away her thoughts before she could stop herself. “You smell so much better when you’re not covered in blood.”

He sputtered, now, with laughs. “Yeah. We _gotta_ get you some higher baselines.”

“Cassian,” she said with a seductive voice. (Holy shit, it was nice to know his name.) “Would you hate it if I kissed you?”

He followed the double negative—with sudden pupil dilation. “Definitely wouldn’t.”

Jyn pressed her body closer and tilted her head to reach his lips. A flow of memories tangled into her brain while she created new, better ones. She wasn’t worried or cautious this time. The looming danger and desperation weren’t there, either. But the building pressure in her stomach felt just the same while kissing him. She gently kept her mouth against him, hands returning to his hair.

Even in the dark, Jyn had the impression to be lying naked under the sun.

He moved his hands on her, between pallet and blanket, palms mapping every line of her and fitting like they already knew. He returned her kiss fully, not greedily, not hastily, matching and meeting her and unhesitating to follow her lead. One hand swept-caressed-savored the slope of her back, curving under her thigh, and bringing her by it closer against him, holding her there… and, when she started too, moving them, there, together.

Jyn stole a burning breath against his lips and kissed him deeper. She followed the hard line of his shoulder, down his arm, to his hand—pushing it up her thigh, to her ass, brushing the fabric of his shirt up her naked skin. She hadn’t bothered with bottoms; and maybe she should have because she wasn’t as hairless as a veil dancer about _anywhere_ , but if he could want her covered in sweat and blood, the state of her pilosity surely wasn’t a factor.

His fingers dug into her flesh, not bruising but like he was trying not to fall; his lips and chest and hips all rose to press to her still more.

A soft moan caught in her throat. “Did you think of me in that bed?” she asked.

He managed while kissing her: “A lot.” _More than he’d tried._

Jyn hadn’t had the same freedom, but after months of acute survival, her arousal unlocked like the floods under his touch. “I want you,” she said, “get me naked.”

His hands were immediately under the shirt. His cleverness at getting it off her might have been aided by it being _his…_ but then, that relentless dexterity continued after it was gone. Meanwhile, Jyn was busy discovering how toned he truly was. Lean and wiry, like a runner… _Of course, you’ve been running for a long time, haven’t you… so have I…_

He was already bare-chested; he didn’t move to get rid of his sleeping pants, but they wouldn’t prove much of a challenge for her. He covered her with caresses: his hands all over her back, his mouth to her front. Instinctively or deliberately, he kept giving… _opposition? equilibrium? insatiability?_ where he applied attention to her body: above and below, back and front. For instance: his mouth was doing something ambrosial to her neck when his hand slid to cup between her legs—pausing there, for her reaction.

A needy moan escaped her, deeply uncharacteristic of her nature. Wet was an understatement of her condition. No one had made love to her like that and she was about to lose her damn mind.

Jyn slipped her fingers inside his sleep pants and managed to detangle their bodies long enough to undress him. She found some sense of irony in having _so much time_ , for once, and still being unable to pace herself. She craved his body, the memory of that short moment lost between space and time, with him. She wanted it all back.

She hooked a leg higher on his hip, rolling on her back, begging into his ear: “Fuck me.”

His groan vibrated through her skin, where his mouth still pressed her neck, down to where his hand finally moved again. It lavished her, attending to her outside and in, with what had to be a lot of… technical understanding but totally subsumed in what seemed like his _thirst_ for her responses. As he worked her there, _(fluid… dilation…)_ he moved the rest of his body where she led and welcomed him. Until his hand turned to himself to guide him to her.

Jyn closed her arms around his shoulders, a deep sound of pleasure moaned into his neck when he entered her. The stretch was welcomed, needed. His hand slipped around her thigh to make way for his body; came to rest again beneath her, gripping her suddenly as he bottomed out, his voice echoing hers; then, as before (but _more, much more)_ his hand began to move her, supporting, guiding and following, pulling and rocking her in beautiful complement, mirror impulsion, to how he began to move in her in front.

Jyn’s brain shamefully blacked out, but she allowed herself to let it be. She didn’t feel the need for control, not with him. That same trust… just like… Inexplicable. He’d proven himself so much, in so little time. Time wasn’t the essence, time was just a useless component on its own.

His abs sharply contracted and he doubled up in her, thrusting, _needing_ , and the groan that escaped him this time was her name. Her stomach made an upside-down, both from pleasure and emotions. Every part of her seemed on fire, skin too tight to contain the state of her being. She felt the skin of his back, pressing her palms on each side of his spine, a light sweat covering their bodies while he moved inside her. Jyn arched her back to him, following his thrusts, pulling him deeper. Vaguely hearing her own voice somewhere in the room.

It felt… indefinable to be this lost into someone else.

“Cassian.”

( _It’s easy to moan._ )

He pressed his lips ardently to the side of her face; breath hard, heart thudding, skin damp with exertion as their waves deepened. His hand (though obviously enthralled with that part of her) ran up her body; momentarily gripping her waist—again, like he was about to fall; before finding and beginning to exhaustively survey her breast.

“Cassian— _fuck_.”

Jyn gripped his hair in one hand, the other resting low on his back. All of her nerve endings were sizzling with tension. Her feet tangled with the sheets, forgotten by the end of the bunk. She threw her head back over that pillow that smelled so much like him.

Jyn had the distinct impression that she couldn’t pull enough oxygen down her lungs. His lips were relentless on her skin, and oh, she wished she’d done the same, but she could only lay there and moan his name. And she’d never been this _useless_ before, but—

“I think I fell in love with you that day.”

_Wait— what the fuck, Erso?_

He paused his motions, panting, hanging onto her for dear life, and raised his face to be able to look her in the eyes. He seemed about to speak when she panicked and beat him to it.

“It’s not like… we know each other,” she tried to explain, “and we’ve been only… It’s, hmm, okay— not a good time. I’m just… You don’t need to say anything. Don’t. Forget it.”

_Oh my gods, shut the fuck up._

His eyes on her… what idiots thought _mouths_ were where smiles happened? He brought up his hand to frame her face, brush his thumb over her lips, and said, like he was figuring out the words midway through each of them: “It’s early, that’s okay. It’s not a contract. I feel it, too.”

“You do?” she stupidly asked.

The only part of him now moving at all, he bent his head to touch their foreheads. “I don’t know a lot about this,” he breathed. “But, yeah. I do.” Again, _“A lot.”_

Oh. _Oh._ Jyn was able to breathe again, shaking off the terror in her guts. “I’m so sorry,” she exhaled with a mocking laugh, “that was so dramatic.”

He’d frowned (she could feel it where their faces touched) at the apology. Now it smoothed out. “My fault… I didn’t have to… stop… everything…” To illustrate the point, his lips moved to her pulse and his hips began again to move. Jyn closed her eyes and pushed her body to meet him. She was such a mess, his words still burned in her brain. _A lot._

“I’m… so close,” she breathed.

The words worked in him; his grip tightened on her, his hips stuttered, his cock within her did… _something_ independent of the rest of him. Lips on her skin, breathing her, he uttered words that weren’t Basic—then added, “Go on, Jyn, love.”

_Holy shit._

Like he’d just flipped a switch. Jyn never had such a powerful orgasm in her life. Her shoulders lifted from the mattress, her body shaking until she fell back down, throat burning. A tickling sensation kept running in her limbs, pulsing in rhythm with her insides. She belatedly felt him arch back with her, and thrust highest yet, and crumble upon her, his body pulsing out; pulled through with hers. (Two for two now… guy could do simultaneous orgasms. That was… _nice_. …Though it might also be nice at some point to wreck him while she wickedly smiled…)

She held him without a word, for long minutes, while they both came down from that rush. She traced small shapes on his back, listening to his breathing so close to her. Her body felt weightless. A welcomed type of exhaustion. Lying still with him afterward, with no pressure to get away or get back on her guard, felt _glorious_.

She could get used to staying put, for a change. Here, wherever; she could even get used to his rebellion. Or she could try. See what came after tomorrow. If some of those people were like him, they couldn’t be so bad, after all.

“I still owe you a drink,” Jyn said. “And a date.”

“You don’t owe me _anything.”_ Clearly much, much too important to him to let slide as _idiom._ Then, with a lighter, quicker kiss, he continued speaking before she might have to: “Sounds _really_ good, though.”

“If we get near Takodana sometimes… I’ll try to seduce you.”

Breath of a laugh and another brush of lips. “That sounds good, too.”

“Cassian,” she said, suddenly so raw. “Thank you for coming back.”

At that, his silver tongue failed. He just looked at her—for a moment—in which she saw the _haunting,_ in him, of all the ways he could have missed and lost her; the bewilderment that someone he knew so little was in him so deep; and the fiery sharp _protectiveness_ against all the what-ifs, past and future.

At last, he nodded; very little, insufficient on anyone else, but she’d profiled him back in the cell and had amassed quite enough corroborating evidence: showing the least meant feeling too much.

More eloquent was how hard (close and warm and with so much purpose) he hugged and kissed her again.

And she could believe that he would come back, again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! This was extremely fun to write and we hope you had a good time :) Leave us a little comment please ❤️


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